Published on 15 December 2025
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 32855/25
Josephine BONI and Salvatore BONI
against Malta
lodged on 20 October 2025
communicated on 26 November 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the circumstances related to the burial of the applicants’ daughter. The latter died in a road accident and suffered grievous injuries to her body. The applicants had commissioned F, a funeral director/undertaker (il-kumissjonat), to take care of the funeral and requested that their daughter be dressed in an outfit for the occasion. On the day of the funeral, F advised them to keep the coffin closed. Three years later, when opening the coffin to transfer the body, it turned out that the daughter had not been dressed but put in a body bag, the clothes being also found in the coffin.
The applicants instituted constitutional redress proceedings against F and the hospital complaining, inter alia, of a violation of Article 8 of the Convention as a result of the manner in which their daughter had been buried and the failure to inform them that their daughter had not been taken care of according to their instructions.
By a judgment of 5 October 2023 confirmed on appeal by the Constitutional Court on 23 June 2025, their claims were rejected.
The courts noted that the workers of the hospital’s mortuary had testified that the youth had not been dressed because of her grievous injuries (according to the normal practice) and that the report drafted by the hospital about the incident indicated that she had been put in a body bag for “ethical reasons”. The courts considered that there was no reason to question the state of the body. It was also noted that while the Internal Standard Operation Procedures (SOP) for mortuary and anatomic pathology staff provided that the family should be informed by the funeral director (if the body is not to be dressed), F claimed not to have been informed. In their testimony, none of the mortuary employees could identify who had informed F, and no records in this respect had been provided. According to the Constitutional Court it was unfortunate that the parents had not been informed by the authorities or the funeral director (whoever committed the omission) but, bearing in mind all the circumstances, there had been no breach of Article 8 despite the unfortunate way in which the parents had eventually found out. This without prejudice to any civil claims the applicants might have had against the funeral director.
Relying on Article 8 of the Convention the applicants complain of the authority’s (the mortuary employees) decision not to dress their daughter without just cause and the failure to inform them of such, which they considered was against protocol and not justified. They also argue that the State failed its positive obligation to put in place a procedure to avoid this from happening.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a breach of Article 8 of the Convention in the present case? In particular, was the decision not to clothe the applicants’ daughter, despite instructions to the contrary, based on i) ethical reasons, ii) impossibility (due to the type of injuries), or iii) practical considerations (due to possible leakages from open wounds in the body)? Accordingly, was that decision in accordance with the law? If so, which hard or soft law provisions? Did the decision pursue a legitimate aim under Article 8 § 2 and was it proportionate in the circumstances of the case?
2. Has there been a breach of Article 8, inter alia, given that the applicants were not informed of the decision? Bearing in mind the duty of the Contracting States to organise their services and to train their agents in such a way that they can meet the requirements of the Convention and that in an area as personal and delicate as the management of the death of a close relative, a particularly high degree of diligence and prudence has to be exercised by the authorities (see Hadri-Vionnet v. Switzerland, no. 55525/00, § 56, 14 February 2008, and Polat v. Austria, no. 12886/16, § 114, 20 July 2021), as well as the fact that the domestic framework provided that relatives should be informed of such decisions, what safeguards were put in place to ensure that this information is passed on, and were any records taken in the present case?